Picnic By the River
by Cloud Sage
Summary: Several short stories featuring Sakura and Kakashi. All genres.
1. Picnic By the River

Picnic By the River

A/N: This takes place after the Water country story arc

It was the middle of springtime and the weather was perfect. Not too hot, not too cold and just the slightest hint of a breeze. Kakashi had decided to let team 7 have the rest of the day off since they had trained so hard in the morning. After he told the team that the rest of the day there would be no training, Naruto had immediately run off to the ramen stand and Sasuke had also left, although in a slightly less urgent way than Naruto. This left Sakura and Kakashi.

"Nowhere to go Sakura?" asked Kakashi.

"No it's not that, it's just that I can't decide where to go," she answered. "It's such a nice day outside and there are so many different places I could go." She suddenly brightened and said "Maybe I should see if Sasuke wants to do something with me."

"I think he was going to train some more." said Kakashi.

"Oh" she answered, looking slightly crestfallen.

"You could join Naruto at the ramen stand, I'm sure he would be happy to have some company" Kakashi said.

At this remark Sakura scowled and said "Ramen, ramen, ramen! Is that all he ever thinks about? One day he's going to explode from eating so much of it."

Under his mask, Kakashi's lips twitched into a small smile which went unseen by Sakura. "I'm going to sit by the river and eat lunch, would you like to join me?" he asked her.

"That sounds nice" she said. "I guess having a picnic by the river is better than more training, or ramen."

They gathered up their belongings and started to walk in the direction of the river. As they walked, Sakura gazed upward at the brilliant blue sky and marveled at the many different shaped clouds. The trees were just as beautiful as the sky. Since it was spring, all of the cherry trees in the village were in full bloom. The trees with their puffy pink blossoms reminded Sakura of the clouds she was looking at.

"Sakura?"

"Yes?"

"Is this spot alright?"

Sakura stopped looking at the clouds and looked at the spot which Kakashi had chosen. She blinked in confusion when she realized she had never seen this place along the river before.

"I didn't know there were water lilies in the river, these are beautiful!" she exclaimed.

Kakashi smiled and said "Not many people come to this part of the river."

They both sat down, and as Sakura started eating she watched Kakashi out of the corner of her eye to see if she could catch a glimpse of his elusive face. Unfortunately, she had no such luck. As he started eating Kakashi pulled out his orange book and started to read blocking most of his face.

"Kakashi?"

"Mmmm?"

"Why do you like that book so much?"

Without taking his eyes from the pages of the book he replied "It has a good plot, excellent characters, and it's well written."

Sakura sighed at his vague answer and irritably brushed her hair out of her eyes. Once again without taking his eyes from his book, Kakashi said to Sakura "Have you ever thought about cutting your hair? It might start to get in the way if it gets too long."

"I don't want to cut my hair. Besides, I would look really weird if my hair was short" she replied.

This time Kakashi did look up from his book as he carefully took one pink lock of hair and gently tugged on it. "I'm sure you would look lovely no matter how short your hair was" he said.

"But Sasuke may not like it" she replied.

Kakashi dropped the lock of hair and asked her "Is Sasuke's opinion more important than trying to do your best at being a ninja?"

"I…" she started to say, but then stopped as she thought about Kakashi's question. "I guess being a ninja is more important" she said reluctantly, but quickly added "Sasuke is important also."

Kakashi did not reply to this and Sakura gazed thoughtfully at the river, thinking about what he had said.

"I suppose the important things for ninjas to do are to get their jobs done accurately and quickly, work together with their teammates, and try to get everyone out of the situation alive" she said.

Kakashi glanced over his book at her. Sometimes she would show a surprising maturity for someone her age. "Yes, those are very important things to remember when you are doing your job as a ninja" he said.

"I suppose there will be even more dangerous situations ahead of us, like more of those ninja from the water country" she said.

"I won't let any of you die while you're with me" Kakashi said softly.

Sakura turned toward him and smiled at his reply. Kakashi also smiled back at her.

"Well, I have other things to do and I should be going" he said and stood up.

"I guess I should be going too" said Sakura.

"Think about what I said alright?" as he ruffled her hair.

"I will sensei" she said.

"And don't be late for training tomorrow" he added as he disappeared in puff of smoke and leaves.

"WHAT?" Sakura yelled at the place where he had just disappeared, "That's not fair! You're the one who is always late with unbelievable excuses!" She shook her head and started to walk back to her house.

**************

Several months later, after the Chunin exams were over, Sakura touched her short hair and thought about the conversation she had with Kakashi. His words were now clearer than ever and she would never forget what he had told her.


	2. Push and Pull

Push and Pull

Push forward and pull back. It was the same with all three of them. A needed push forward and an occasional pull back. A delicate balance of the two was needed for a teacher to properly instruct the students. Each of Kakashi's students needed a different amount of pushes and pulls, but with Sakura the balance was especially delicate.

With Naruto it was mostly pulls. The boy was so impulsive. If he would just slow down and think about his actions he would make an excellent ninja one day. For now Kakashi was constantly pulling him back so that he would not do anything to harm himself or his teammates.

Sasuke was the one who needed the most pushing. Although, with Sasuke it was not so much pushing as it was gentle persuasion to pursue the right path. Kakashi knew that Sasuke was fixed on his revenge, but it would be better for both him and his teammates if he could put his revenge aside.

Sakura was slightly more complicated than the two boys. She was quite intelligent, but sometimes she had trouble with certain skills and she doubted herself. He did his best to bring out the strengths of all three of his students.

Sometimes it was best if he pulled back. During a strength training exercise, Naruto and Sasuke had finished their tasks before Sakura was done and had left her alone on the training field. She was struggling with one part of the exercise he had assigned them. After letting her grapple with the exercise for a short time he had walked over to help her. Angry and tired, she had snapped at him to leave her alone she would do it herself. Usually she did not object to having him help her, but this time he had wisely left her alone. When she finally finished her exercises he said nothing to her as he left, but gave her a friendly pat on her shoulder and she gave him a tired but triumphant smile in return.

Sometimes it was a push that she needed. When his three students were first starting to learn offensive moves using their internal energy, the two boys caught on quickly and soon there were enormous holes from explosions which they had created dotting the training ground. Sakura always had an enormous amount of energy about her, but today she seemed to have trouble using it. She kept glancing over at her other two teammates who were trying to outdo each other.

Kakashi wandered towards where she was working and quietly sat down next to her. She looked towards him and he gave her a silent questioning look.

"I can't do this" she told him.

He shook his head in reply. "Shut your eyes" he instructed her. "Don't think about anything else, just think about what you want to accomplish." He placed his large hands over her small hands so she could feel the proper energy flow. The two of them sat quietly for several moments. "Now" he told her, "try again." The hole from her resulting explosion dwarfed both Naruto's and Sasuke's.

Sometimes what she needed was neither a push nor a pull, but something entirely different. After one long and boring mission, Naruto and Sasuke had too much energy left and decided to take out it out on each other. Sakura had tried to break up the resulting fight and ended up with a twisted ankle for her troubles. After giving Sakura some medicine for the pain, Kakashi gave the boys a very stern (and occasionally menacing) talk about how their rivalry could harm others.

When he finished lecturing them, he scooped up Sakura and set off towards their destination at a fast walk.

Sakura looked tentatively at his face from her position in his arms. "Are you angry at us?" she asked.

He half shut his one visible eye as he said "Sometimes what we need protecting from is not from our enemies, but our own friends. And occasionally we even need protection from ourselves."

"Ourselves?"

He nodded.

The pain medicine was making her sleepy, but she grasped the point of his answer anyway. She yawned, leaned her head into his chest and said to him: "You mean protection from bad decisions?" He nodded again and before she drifted off to sleep she murmured "I guess so."

After she became more experienced, he did not have as many opportunities to give her a nudge in the right direction because he was no longer her teacher. However, he still liked to make sure she was doing alright. Before she went on her first solo mission, he ran into her near one of the training fields. She excitedly told him about her mission and when she finally finished telling him about the details of it, she asked if he had any advice for her.

He folded his arms across his chest, shut his eyes and appeared to think deeply. "My advice to you is…don't do anything dumb."

Sakura rolled her eyes.

"Seriously."

"Of course I won't do anything dumb."

She gave him one more brilliant smile and he pulled away from her one more time.


	3. Beautiful Perseverance

Beautiful Perseverance

Kakashi stood over the four motionless bodies with a thoughtful expression. His three students silently watched as he contemplated their next move. After a full five minutes of silence he said "We'll leave them here as a warning to the others." His three students nodded and they quickly exited the grove of trees at a fast run.

As they moved through the trees, Kakashi reviewed their mission in his mind. Two men and two women with a dangerous delivery of poison. All four were well trained, but none of them had been expecting the attack. They had been simple messenger ninja and they never stood a chance. Kakashi's team had moved in silently, following them for several hours before they had finally struck. The battle had been short as they often were and the four messengers were killed quickly. Except in times of war, the younger ninja were often assigned missions such as these where their success rate was likely to be high. Killing a person for the first time was never an easy task and those new ninja who had been thrown into difficult situations when their friends often died would sometimes quit after one mission.

That was why they would have an easy day tomorrow. The other reason was that Kakashi wanted them to think about what they had accomplished. The destruction of the four people could have saved hundreds of lives, but the loss of those lives should not be taken lightly.

As the trees disappeared behind them, he watched their faces to see how they were reacting. Naruto and Sasuke looked triumphant, although it was slightly more muted on Sasuke's face. Sakura looked determined as if the mission was still ahead of her. Kakashi looked forward into the setting sun. If it did not sink in now, it would sink in later.

After they had stopped at an inn for the night they went out to eat. His three students were much more subdued now that the initial rush of success and adrenaline were gone. Two bites into his meal, Naruto started firing off questions about what happened to people after they died. Kakashi did his best to answer them and both Naruto and Sasuke seemed more satisfied.

Several hours later, just after they had settled down to sleep Sakura sat up suddenly and turned towards him. "Something wrong Sakura?" he asked her. She shook her head, but she kept glancing at him as if she wanted to ask him something. She still had that slight frown of an unanswered question on her face as she drifted off to sleep.

Four hours was all the sleep he got when he woke to the sound of thrashing sheets coming from Sakura's bed. He sat up and ran a hand through his hair as he waited for her to wake up. Nightmares. He still had them and he knew his students would also have them.

But Sakura did not wake up. The thrashing only increased and started to become so extreme that he decided to wake her up so that she would not disturb the others. He clamped down on her flailing wrists and spoke her name into her ear. Sakura woke up with a jerk and immediately tried to attack him. Still in the grips of the nightmare, he thought as he dodged her kicks. He kept repeating her name and eventually the kicks stopped.

Sakura sat up and gave him a confused look. "I'm sorry, I thought I was…", but before she could finish her sentence her face suddenly went white with anger. She pummeled her fist into her pillow and feathers leapt into the air as the pillow burst. "Those people," she said through clenched teeth "why did they have to die?" Before he could answer she rushed on. "I was dreaming about our mission, except the people we killed were not strangers." Her hands tightened on the edge of the bed and her voice got very soft. "They were my family."

"Sakura the mission-" he started to say, but she cut him off.

"The mission? Is that the only thing that matters? What about the cost of people? What if those people had families?" Before he could answer, she jumped out of her bed and ran out of the door. Kakashi sighed. He sat down on her bed and waited for her to come back. After fifteen minutes and still no sign of her he left the room to bring her back. When he opened the door he was blasted by the wind and rain of a surprise rainstorm. He shook his head in irritation at Sakura's stubbornness and grabbed an umbrella before heading out into the storm.

He found her quickly even though the rain had washed away the few footprints she had left behind. She was at the edge of town near a garden where only a few flowers bloomed. He walked towards her, umbrella in hand and silently waited for her to acknowledge him. Sakura kept her back to him for several long minutes then slowly turned around. Teacher and student locked gazes as the rain continued to hammer down. Finally Sakura squished towards him, water running down her body and into her shoes.

"I…those people…it makes me so angry…" Her tirade was interrupted as she stumbled and Kakashi dropped the umbrella to catch her. All the energy seemed to leave her and she clung tightly to him. He led her underneath a tree where the rain was not so heavy and she started to shake. She clutched him tighter as she shook even harder with her repressed sadness and anger.

Kakashi put his head close to hers and said "Sakura, taking a life is easy, but recognizing the value of those lives is what makes it hard. Every day people have to make tough decisions about what the best course of action is and sometimes those decisions involve unpleasant choices. Our leaders always have the best interests of their people in mind even if we can't see it."

She nodded her head against his chest and the warm wetness of her tears began to mix with the cooler water of the rain. He stroked her damp head with one hand and put another hand on her back as she shook with sobs. After several minutes she broke away from him and he let one hand rest on her cheek.

"What if someone tries to kill us?" she asked him softly.

"Do you remember what I told the three of you on one of our first missions?"

She nodded. "You said you would never let that happen."

"Yes, and I mean to keep that promise" he said quietly as he wiped away the last of her tears with his thumb.

She gave him a hesitant smile and broke away to retrieve the umbrella. I'm getting to old for this, he thought as he stifled a yawn and watched Sakura pull the umbrella out of a puddle. And yet, he thought as she came to stand beside him and put her wet hand in his, to watch them persevere and face internal troubles so solidly, it was almost beautiful.


	4. Protection

Protection

At first Sakura thought her new assignment was a joke. She suspiciously held the scroll close to her face and carefully examined the printed instructions. The letters were the same blue-black ink as all of her previous mission scrolls had been, and when she held the paper towards the sunlight, it appeared to be the proper thickness. Her next thought was that Naruto had somehow played a trick on her, but she quickly dismissed the thought. Subtlety was not Naruto's strong point. And Sasuke… it was best to just not think about Sasuke. She rolled the scroll up and tucked it into her belt pouch. The scroll could wait until after she had eaten lunch.

Lunch was the usual affair, eaten in a large cafeteria at a table with the rest of her former classmates who were currently not on missions. Sakura listened to the hum and buzz of the conversations around her and occasionally added a word or two as she ate her lunch. She had almost pushed the scroll from her mind when something unexpected happened. Kakashi Hatake appeared in the cafeteria. Generally, her former teacher preferred to each lunch by himself, unless you counted his ever present book as a companion. He meandered through the lunchroom towards her table greeted Sakura with a "Yo", and wandered off again. Nonplussed, Sakura watched him wander off. Kakashi's greeting was the equivalent of a long conversation with anyone else. As she continued to watch him she suddenly remembered that the mission scroll had said that he was to be her only other partner for this mission.

The next morning she got up early and went to the building where she was to have the first pre-mission meeting. She entered a small room and sat down to wait. There was not much to look at. Just a plain room with a table, two chairs, and a cabinet against the wall. Sakura wished she had brought something to do. If she was waiting for Kakashi then she was in for a long wait. She got up and walked over to the cabinet to see if it was unlocked. To her surprise it was, but the contents were not what she had expected.

Hairpins, several strings of pearls, buttons, and numerous tiny decorative pins. She had no idea what any of these items were doing here. Usually the cabinets in the meeting rooms were stocked with maps, pencils, paper and occasionally coffee. Extra weapons were stored on the lower floors and supplies such as food were in a different building. She turned the pins over in her hands and wondered if they had anything to do with the mission. The mission scroll had stated that she would be attending a formal party, but that made no sense to her.

Sakura's current teachers had indicated now that she had more experience, she would be able to go on slightly more harder missions. Maybe this was to be the first harder mission. When she was younger this announcement would have been a cause for celebration, but now that she was older she knew better. Harder missions meant a greater chance of being killed. Which was why the value of teamwork had been pounded into their heads at the very beginning. She was grateful that Kakashi had taught them that.

Sakura put the pins back and took out the pearls. While she had been grateful to have Kakashi as a teacher, it seemed to her that she could have learned a lot more from him. After he had taught her, Naruto, and Sasuke the basics, they had all been whisked away to do field work with a new teacher because there had been a major skirmish at the border. She had felt divided about getting a new teacher. On one hand Kakashi was extremely competent, intelligent, and resourceful, but on the other hand he was absentminded, chronically late, and indecipherable. She was also somewhat intimidated by him.

"Careful with those" said a voice in her ear.

"You're late" she replied.

Sakura started to put the pearls back, but Kakashi took them from her and sat down at the table.

"Do you know what these are?"

Sakura shrugged. Kakashi took one pearl off the string and swallowed it. Sakura raised an eyebrow.

"Enhancer pills and vitamins" he told her.

"But…shouldn't they be a different color?"

He shook his head. "The colors are only for coding. When you first start out as a ninja everything is simplified, but now you will learn a deeper level of deception. Our mission is to protect a guest at an important political gathering, but before we leave I have a few new things to teach you. We have several weeks until then, I suggest you pay attention. And make sure not to be late." Sakura rolled her eyes.

Over the next few weeks, Sakura was busy preparing for the mission. Some things she learned from Kakashi and others she learned on her own. The string of pearls which Kakashi showed her on the first day turned out to be in a specific order. By counting from the end of the string one could determine what the function of each pearl was. The hairpins turned out to be needles for throwing once the blunt end was taken off. The buttons hid extremely small radios for communicating short distances.

In addition to learning about new weapons and equipment, she also learned new techniques. And not just ninja techniques. Dancing, etiquette, and the current political situation. Proper etiquette for the proper situation she had learned when she had been a young ninja, but at the time she had thought it was stupid and had promptly forgotten most of it after the test. Except for dancing. She distinctly remembered learning how to dance because she and the rest of the girls in the class had all wanted to dance with Sasuke. Sasuke had wanted nothing to do with learning to dance, and had been conspicuously absent after he had learned when the dancing lessons were to be held. The one time she had managed to dance with Sasuke he had stiffly stayed as far away from her as he possibly could. For the rest of the lessons she had danced with Naruto who had extremely sweaty palms and smelled strongly of ramen.

Kakashi was quite different. He held her hands firmly and when she made a mistake he patiently corrected her. Once she learned the basic steps, she then learned how to smoothly move from dancing to her ninja training. At first it had not been so smooth. The first time she had fully opened her senses while dancing she became so distracted that she stumbled and fell. Even with her enhanced senses Kakashi's breathing was no more than a quiet whisper, and she felt the faint tingling where their chakras met up, but it was the smell that was distracting. As Kakashi caught her the smell intensified. As he held her steady she gave him an accusing glare.

"You smell like cinnamon rolls!"

"Hmm?"

She started patting his vest pockets in search of the delicious smell.

After letting her search all his pockets he said vaguely "Oh…I live near a bakery."

Sakura was disappointed, but she leaned in closer to get a better smell. All the other times that she had opened her senses around people generally all she could smell of them was sweat. She could still smell that too, but the cinnamon scent made everything much nicer. She wondered what she smelled like to him.

Finally the night of the mission arrived. Sakura arrived at the meeting spot and only had to wait a half hour for Kakashi. She always had an adrenaline rush before the beginning of a mission and when she saw him arrive she leapt up and would have run off to their destination if he had not put a hand on her shoulder to restrain her. He carefully looked her over. She knew her was checking to make sure all of her weapons were concealed, but since she was wearing a dress this time rather than her usual ninja uniform she felt slightly self-conscious. Perhaps sensing her thoughts, Kakashi murmured a vague "You look nice" and Sakura nodded in response. He ran his hands down her sides and paused at each of the thin needles she had concealed in her clothing. Finally he was finished and removed something from his pocket. The pearls he had shown her during their first meeting. He leaned in closer to tie them around her neck and she breathed in his cinnamon smell. Kakashi gave her a long look.

"I'm ready!" she told him impatiently. He put a hand to her shoulder one more time and they started off.

The building in which the gathering was to be held was large, open and airy. Even though the sun had set, lanterns had been hung in the rafters and provided a good light. There were a lot of people attending the gathering and it took them several minutes to find the man which they had been hired to guard. Once they spotted him they started to make a slow circuit of the room, stopping now and then to politely converse with people.

Several hours later was when the trouble started. Sakura had danced nine times with several different people and was on her tenth partner when she heard an explosion. She quickly shoved her dance partner under a table and ran to the source of the commotion. A thin dart whisked past her ear and she barely dodged it in time. She could see that Kakashi had gotten to the person which they were guarding and was quickly hauling him outside. Another dart zipped past her and this time clipped her on the ear. She spotted several more bombs and yanked the thin needles out of her dress to disable them. The first two she disabled but the third one went off. The building shook with the blast and part of a wall had a hole in it. She desperately looked around for the person who had set the bombs off, but could not see anyone. Sakura looked around but did not see any more bombs. She had just started to herd the remaining people outside when Kakashi ran inside.

"Outside. Now!" he shouted at her and grabbed two people. Sakura grabbed another two and they ran outside. They set the people down and the entire building exploded. As she watched the building in shock other people from nearby houses started to arrive and help those who had gotten outside. Sakura took a step towards the burning building, but Kakashi picked her up and turned to leave.

"Hey! What are you doing? We should help those people!" Sakura struggled to get out of his grip.

"This was a set-up, if we stay to help, people will believe that Konoha was involved. We have to leave as fast as possible."

"But what about the injured people?!"

"The ones that survived will be taken care of."

"The ones that survived….?" Sakura thought with horror of all of the people who had still been inside the building when it had exploded. If Kakashi had not been carrying her she would have fallen over from shock. She was silent for the rest of the trip home.

When Kakashi finally set her down she wanted to tell him that he was wrong to leave those people there, that they should have stayed even if it would have endangered Konoha, and that she hated his stupid decision to leave. But everything got tangled together and when she tried to speak all she managed to get out was an angry sob. And that was just a gateway to her other emotions. She thought of all those people that were still in the building. She could have saved them if she had just been a few seconds faster. Why had Kakashi not told her that the building was going to explode? Still sobbing she hit him with her closed fists. Kakashi said nothing, but simply stood there. How could she measure the value of the lives of those in her village to other innocent people? It just was not fair!

With all the energy gone from her Sakura slid towards the ground. Kakashi caught her and did something he had never done before: he pulled her close into an embrace. Sakura was still angry, but she had no energy left to resist. After several minutes he said "Everyone has to make hard choices. Ninja often have to make the hardest." She looked up at his face, but he was staring off into the distance as if lost in memories. Sakura realized that he had been through even more of these missions than she had. She looked into his eyes and saw pain and unhappy memories. If people like ninjas did not protect the innocent people then who would protect them? She fiercely returned Kakashi's embrace. She would still try to protect them all. Especially Kakashi.


	5. First One

First One

Ever since she was a young girl, Sakura had always wanted to be a ninja. This desire was only intensified when she met Sasuke. During her early years as a ninja she had focused all of her energy on doing everything as good as possible so that Sasuke would notice her. After Sasuke left the village Sakura felt like part of herself had left with him. In the days after his departure she had realized that she had built a life around a boy that cared little for her and even if she and Naruto could bring him back, he would never be the same.

Instead of training with Sasuke in mind, Sakura trained with the idea that she could save other people. She decided to become a medic and threw herself into her training. Learning to be a medic was just as hard as learning to be a ninja. It was a lot of work, but Sakura's precise control of her power made it easier for her.

During one of her first classes she noticed that most of the students who would become medics were female. She mentioned this to another classmate who rolled her eyes and said: "Boys like to make things go boom and hit stuff. We are the ones who patch them up when things get messy." Sakura quickly learned that patching people up was more complicated than she thought. There were endless diagrams, poisons, antidotes and other things to memorize. A medic ninja had to know exactly how the body was put together so that they could heal it properly.

Once Naruto learned that she was going to be a medic, he would often take her along to his sparring matches, where they would spar together or where she would fix up whatever was left of his opponents. Healing bruises and broken bones was easy, but when she was first sent out on a mission everything became much harder.

One of Sakura's greatest fears was the thought that one day she would come across someone that she could not heal. She was very relived when her first assigned partner was Kakashi. She knew his abilities and trusted that he would not make any dumb mistakes as the younger ninja tended to do. Their mission was fairly simple. They were to steal a scroll in a large guarded compound. The compound was heavily guarded and there were guard towers posted everywhere. Two other pairs of ninja would provide a distraction and Sakura would help Kakashi blast through the walls to get to the scroll and heal the others after the mission was over.

The first part of the mission went smoothly. After they had retrieved the scroll, they started to fight their way back out. There were more guards than they had expected and there were a couple injuries. After leaving behind the ruined compound, they met up with the other members of their group. Sakura did some quick healing of a broken bone and then they left so that they would be far away by nightfall and would not be tracked.

Once they had made camp she took a closer look at their injuries, leaving Kakashi until last. Kakashi had told her immediately after their battle that he did not have any important injuries. Sakura started to do her assessment, but was dismayed to find that Kakashi had not been quite truthful. From her position on the ground beside him in their tent she gave him a sharp poke in the ribs. He gave her puzzled look and winced.

"You didn't tell me that you had broken ribs!" she said accusingly. Sakura placed her hands on his side and started to knit the bones back together.

Kakashi shrugged. "Not life threatening."

Sakura rolled her eyes and focused on sealing the cracks in the bones. Once that was done she moved on to his abdomen. As she checked the health of the organs she became aware of how close she was sitting to Kakashi. They had not had much contact since Sasuke had run off and Kakashi was not one to enjoy long conversations. She moved to the next organ and discreetly studied him. Kakashi had taken out one of his books and appeared to be engrossed in it. He probably had been subjected to many of these exams before, but this was the first time that Sakura had treated anyone familiar besides Naruto. She noticed things about him that she had never noticed before, like the way his nose was shaped and the grey colors in his one eye, which seemed to exactly match his hair. He was surprisingly…attractive. How had she not noticed before?

When they had first started practicing on people at the hospital their teachers had not let them work on anyone that they knew. Sakura now understood why: it was distracting. As she worked on Kakashi, memories of their time as student and teacher washed over her. Their first training session, the time that Kakashi had thrown her out of the way when Naruto and Sasuke were fighting, their time in the water country. She remembered that during one of their training sessions, the objective of the day was for one of them to touch Kakashi, and if they could, disable him. All of them had failed miserably and now here she was, with Kakashi letting her get closer than he ever had.

The other ninja that Sakura had healed on their team earlier had just been bodies to Sakura, bodies that needed healing. Kakashi was Kakashi, not just a body. Sakura suddenly flushed with embarrassment as she moved to his lower abdomen. As medics they were required to do a quick exam of all body systems including reproductive. She did not need to do anything more than a quick internal scan, but questions floated up into her mind. Kakashi had never mentioned children or a wife, but had he had them in the past? He had told team seven previously that everyone who was important to him was dead; did that include a former family? Kakashi glanced up from his book at that moment and Sakura's concentration shattered.

"When you finish with that, you might want to take another look up here," he said and tapped his upper chest. He followed this with a cough which Sakura did not like the sound of. She immediately reengaged her focus to his lungs. As she was checking again, Kakashi suddenly toppled over. She swore under her breath as she located the source. A vessel had burst near his lungs. It must have just happened because Sakura had just checked his lungs. This was easy to fix, but it had to be done quickly so that the blood would not leak into the lungs and cause breathing to stop.

She raced along Kakashi's vessels with her mind. The seconds seemed like hours as she tried to pinpoint the source of the bleeding. She finally located and closed off the vessel after a short time. She started to sigh with relief, but then realized that Kakashi was not breathing.

If the seconds had seemed like hours, now it seemed as if time stood still. Her mind screamed at her to move or do something, but her body would not obey. Kakashi's slow pulse under her limp hand was what spurred her to action.

She tilted his head back, ripped his mask off, put her mouth to his and started to breath for him. After a few breaths Kakashi started to breath on his own. Sakura gasped as she got her own breath back. She leaned down to give him one more breath to make sure he was alright, but somehow it turned into a relived kiss as she felt the breath moving through his mouth.

As Kakashi sat up, she leaned close to help him. With her heart pounding in her ears from the rush of adrenaline, she reached out to him to check to make sure that the vessel was still closed off. Before she could check him, Kakashi had pined her arms to her sides. He leaned towards her and then kissed her back.

Her teachers had always said that there were some patients they would never forget. The first ones stay with you forever.


End file.
